


Countdown

by czerni



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Bad English, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Introspection, Love/Hate, Not Beta Read, implied demonic possession, mild spoilers from the choose your own adventure book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 20:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17815247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/czerni/pseuds/czerni
Summary: ...This is a circular story, darling.





	Countdown

(Five, four, three, two, one)

She has always known how to get into the deepest of his broken mind.

(Five, four, three, two, one)

(“ _And this is a circular story, darling_ ”)

.

.

.

First it is Shooting Star —it is always Shooting Star—; it is a distant dimension and the closest thing to a home that he could have ever had; it is a one-dimensional life with one-dimensional minds and one-dimensional dreams; it is the hatred and the madness hand by hand inside his system, running between his fingers- claws made of nightmares and destroying everything in his path—

But, first it is Shooting Star, her and her brightness and warmness and _her everything_. She is a creature of idyllic dreams, of kind and colorful illusions, that takes his hand and makes him see the beauty of that plain and boring dimension, however—

(It isn’t enough.)

Then—

They are her screams and tears and her fear fear fear. And Bill who just laughs even in his own pain and—

(He didn’t want to hurt anybody).

Shooting Star burns along with their dimension. Bill is just a liar.

(Blame the arson for the fire)

.

.

.

(Five, four, three, two, one)

_And remember! Reality's an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold!_

Centuries pass by before he finds her again.

He didn’t think that he could find her again.

But, oh it turns out that that destiny is such a capricious thing, isn’t it?

And she is still so bright, even when she is hidden inside that body made of bones and flesh and muscles, _so fragile and easy to tear apart_. He satisfies himself watching her in her dreams; in that world of her creation that it’s so much like her. He watches her grow up from the shadows, along with that new world that starts to get his curiosity and in which he wants to be able to put his claws and fill it with insanity. Make it a funnier place.

Euphoria.

(Dementia.

Chaos.

And then there would be no gods, just Bill Cipher.)

_Carpe Diem._

Shooting Star smiles and moves with so much freedom and she laughs and she dreams dreams dreams and she enchants him into that unilateral dance without knowing it; minds in eternal contact, fighting for leadership. Her voice breaks his eardrums like a mermaid song. Bill comes to love her like he loved her before. Bill hates her for not being the same as before. Bill laughs with his megalomaniac laugh, perpetual contradiction.

(Five, four, three, two—)

He didn’t want to find her again.

Shooting Star grows older in her mortal body and dies. Bill keeps watching her dimension, forming plans in his mindscape, greed tangled in his fingers like a red string of fate.

.

.

.

(Five, four, three, two, one)

It turns out that she continues existing and he keeps finding her; again and again and again and again.

He never wants to know her new names, her mortal names; she is always Shooting Star to him.

Shooting Star who lives between money and beautiful dresses. Shooting Star who wanders barefoot through the streets. Shooting Star who dies young, _too_ young. Shooting Star who lives a long life. Shooting Star who lives in love with love itself. Shooting Star who gets married and has a family and is _happy_. Shooting Star, only Shooting Star.

And he is always Bill Cipher.

Bill who visits her in the unconsciousness of her sleep and marvels at the way each one of these versions it’s more and more similar to the original. He tries to communicate with them and not because he miss her— far from it, it’s just because he can use them for his own benefit; nothing else. Because now she can be human but that does not erase what she was before; and she is still a bit more selfish, a bit crazier, and more chaotic. Just like him; fun and chaos. Two sides of the same coin. _You can take the kid from the fight but not the fight from the kid._

Bill who marvels at the way she reacts every time she meets him; with fear, with horror, with hate, with devotion and a senseless affection still present deep in her subconscious, like the remains of a forgotten past. It’s interesting. It’s hilarious. It makes him sick, to see so much humanity in her eyes, in each one of her lives.

And the true it’s that Shooting Star has always been a bit too human for her own good.

.

.

.

Then—

(Is Shooting Star and the monster that lives in her nightmares; there where the abyss gazes into her, forcing her to gaze it back; he gives her painful memories that she treasures between her wicker hands and her skin made of dry petals, looking for their meaning; he promises her to make her dreams come true if she just give him a body in which he could habit. She becomes fond of that darkness that she fears and yearns at the same time, and that she feels with her fingertips just to end up realizing that she is touching her own face. And there is a name that she listens during cold and lonely nights, a name that melts her bones — _billbillbill_ — and leaves her breathless, with her heart racing and her body trembling. He is an unknown and familiar entity that lulls her to sleep with his claws of spectrum and his fake mercy and paints red her dreams and childish illusions. He’s the beginning of her end that tangles around her body and ask her permission to use it and, oh, his voice is like _petrichor_ and she feels like she is drowning in it when she says yes and her body stops belonging to her. Is Bill that smiles to her with her own lips, and his sharp eyes of mythological beast that sinks into her soul, it is the same laugh that tricked so many others in the past and she is not an exception when she notices the love that she feels for that monstrous creature which, she realizes, has been by her side since before she was born. They are her own hands stained with vermillion and her own nails sinking into her skin while Bill laughs and laughs with joy. A victim; an executioner, but who is which one here? There are the flames of the sacrifice licking her skin once it is hers again and the unintelligible screams from an angry crowd — _witchwitchwitch_ —. It’s the weight of the universe itself and the shadow of the one-eyed beast still under her feet, watching her watching her watching her while her body burns and crash like a comet, and then the sensation of reminiscence crawling down her spine that makes her understand everything. She forgets her own name and the cycle repeats once again.

Five, four, three, two, one.

_Fun is just another way of saying chaos_.)

Shooting Star burns at the stake. Bill is just a liar.

.

.

.

Bill doesn’t find her again for several centuries. He doesn’t search for her, not after the last failure.

Gravity Falls is certainly a curious place, it seems like it attracts the weirdness and supernatural creatures like a magnet. Stanford Pines is a curious man too; maybe he could be his ticket to that dimension with so much potential. Even if he and the rest of the zodiac symbols try to stop him and—

Oh, in the end he does find her again.

.

.

.

It turns out that:

This time Shooting Star is young, too young. It’s not like that matters to him, she has always been young. And even if this time Bill seems to not pay too much attention to her like to her twin, the true is that it is inevitable to his curiosity to not wander towards her once again. Attraction, loathe. An obstacle. She is young, but she already shines in such a natural way; always full of color and brightness, of baggy sweaters covering her pilgrim girl figure, of summer smiles without hypocrisy (most of the time). She is so friendly, so naïve, so dumb. But, at the same time, she is selfish and Bill thinks he can take advantage of that (he has always done it).

After all they are still the same, they still belong to each other, they are still taking part into that unilateral dance started so long ago and of which she isn’t even aware of. Shooting Star that fears the darkness, that avoids loneliness, Shooting Star so desperate like to make a deal with him, without being aware of it. And he gives it to her, her eternal summer, her perfect little world that he has taken from her own dreams, because he _knows_ her. However—

It turns out that they aren’t the same in the end, because Shooting Star’s heart has room for other things that are not chaos and madness; she loves and loves and loves with the same strength as she breaths. And that is something that he can’t change. His steps stumble. The music stops. The red string tangles around his corporeal lungs. There are no hands guiding him in the middle of their cursed dance this time. He always thought that he was the one in control. Shooting Star is here and—

(so it is the blue fire consuming him and the old man Pines looking at him, victorious.)

The scenario does not exist anymore, the curtain turns into ashes. _Welcome home_.

Bill burns between destroyed memories. Shooting Star— Mabel Pines lives on.

(Five, four, three, two, one)

Eternal melancholy.


End file.
